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[[newspaper clipping]] Liberty [[image - flying planes, LIBERTY]] The GREAT WINGED TREASURE HUNT (Reading time: 4 minutes 50 seconds.) BRIGHT and early Tuesday morning, October 3, two hundred or more ladies and gentlemen will step into their planes in St. Louis, Missouri — and the first great aerial treasure hunt of the world will get under way. This unique sport may become, in time, as common as fox-hunting in England. But up to the present no grander spectacle has been planned than this cross-country hunt which is sponsored by Liberty. The skies will groan with the passage of these planes. Their flight will hide the sun, and fast swift shadows will fall upon the earth. St. Louis will watch them vanish in the blue. Terre Haute will see them, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Syracuse. Perhaps Indianapolis and Columbus will see them too. The hunters will stop in Albany for the "pre-pageant dinner," and will fly in a body to Roosevelt Field for the National Air Pageant to be given for charity on October 7 and 8. These riders of the sky will compete not only for points but also for money prizes and the exquisite silver trophy to be awarded by Bernarr Macfadden, publisher of Liberty. They will be furnished with gas and oil. Their hangar and hotel bills will be paid. They will be entertained lavishly at every stop they make. Before each plane takes off, its pilot will be given a rhymed clue which, when properly decoded, will lead him to one of the seven letters spelling the word Liberty. These letters, sixty feet long, will be stretched on the earth outside the seven cities chosen for the stops. At each letter the clue to the next will be found. Points will be awarded for the discovery of each letter, and for the accuracy shown by the pilot in marking the discovery spots on his map. Frank M. Hawks, one of the nation's most celebrated flyers, will be the chief pilot of the treasure hunt. He will leave the various fields after the last contestant has taken off, and will be at the next stop before the fastest of the hunters has arrived. Hawks will fly the swiftest plane of transport type in the world — the Sky Chief, he calls it. It has a cruising speed of 200 miles an hour and a ceiling of 30,000 feet. It is a Northrup Gamma plane powered with a Wright Whirlwind fourteen-cylinder engine, a beautiful all-metal silver bird. Though the plane flies best at high altitudes, Hawks will fly low enough so that all those below may see him plainly. The treasure hunters are amateurs, flying common stock planes. They are members of the Sportsman Pilot Association. They come from all parts of the United States, and number among them some of America's most prominent men and women, including: Louis C. Huck of Grosse Pointe, Mich., Cliff Durant of Roscommon, Mich., John W. Pattison, L. M. Schmidlapp, and Ralph D. Ballmann of Cincinnati, Ralph B. Oakley of Moline, Ill., Edward L.. McVey, Jr., of Columbus, Ohio, R. H. Hunter of Emporium, Pa., Edward F. Knight of Perrysburg, Ohio, H. G. Johnstone of Chicago, Ed Voras of Elkhart, Ind., F. J. Bowers of Greenville, Pa., Lloyd M. Damron of Elsberry, Mo., R. W. Ransom of Sioux Falls, S. D., Dr. A. G. Phelps of Missoula, Mont., J. B. Dahl of Chicago, J. Lauren Freeman and Harry Hodgins of Kansas City, Mo., Dr. Ora R. McMurry of Eagle River, Wis., S. L. Hurt of Atlanta, Ga., Mrs. Robert D. Jackson of Ridgefield, Conn., Raoul Cote of Kankakee, Ill., Charles M. Taylor of Little Rock, Ark., Leo Sullivan of Grand Rapids, Mich., Thomas B. Colby of Detroit, Miss M. Davis of New York, Margaret Arnold Kinball of Lexington, Mass., Helen Richey of McKeesport, Pa., Miss Jessamine Goddard of New York, and Donald G. Graham of Seattle, Wash. THOSE fortunate enough to attend the National Pageant at Roosevelt Field — of which Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is the honorary chairman — will not only see these two hundred and more treasure seekers swoop down out of the air, led by Hawks's silver Sky Chief, but they will witness many other spectacles as well. The champion amateur pilots are to be selected, the best man and woman air chauffeurs. Professional pilots will try to break the world's speed record for land planes. Al Williams, one of America's aces, will appear in a "mystery" aerobatic exhibition. There will be a thrill a minute. And the Canadian Light Airplane Club — S. B. Cleverley, J. McMullen, Kenneth Smith, and Sidney Nesbit — will fly to defend the trophy it won last year at Cleveland. The challengers are teams of four furnished by airplane clubs in Westchester County, New York, Long Island, and Philadelphia. They will attempt to win the cup in a relay race. The planes will start at a given place on signal. They will fly a certain distance, and stop. Each pilot will relinquish his ship to one of this teammates, who will take it on to the next stop, to be in turn relieved by the third teammate. The last man who comes in first — strange as that seems — will win for his team. There will be many races and many trophies, and an enormous crowd is expected. The money received at the gate will go to charities. The pageant is to be held under the auspices of the Sportsman Pilot Association of America and the United States Amateur Air Pilots Association. THE END [PAGE 159]
